"One thing about music, when it hits you feel no pain," Bob Marley may or may not have been the first person to say. And while that is not a thing that is true, one good thing about weed is that when it hits it make music even more chill. So, here are ten songs you should listen to this weekend, each of which will make your life that much easier, assuming you are high when you listen to them.
Kevin Gates – "No Love"
There's something kind of astonishing about Kevin Gates. No matter what kind of insanity the Baton Rouge rap technician cultivates outside of his music — the time he dominated the hip-hop morning show news cycle by claiming he was a fan of cousin-fucking and also butthole-licking, the time I interviewed him and he claimed to have two birthdays and also be a vampire, and a current prison stint he earned from kicking a fan in the head during a 2015 concert — you can count on him to surface every few months and put out one of the most tightly wound, emotionally intense collections of songs you'll find. Today he dropped By Any Means 2, and its opening track is like if Morrissey made turn-up music.
Young Thug and Carnage – "Liger"
As a general rule of thumb, you should never let an EDM producer anywhere near a popular rapper, because they will give the rapper a bad beat that is also dumb. But it turns out Carnage is very much the exception to the rule — he's previously crafted bangers for Makonnen, Migos, and Lil Yachty — and now he and Young Thug have teamed up for a four-track EP that's way more fun than whatever you're listening to today. Leave the Napoleon Dynamite jokes at home, because Napoleon Dynamite is a shitty movie for children, while Young Thug and Carnage's "Liger" is a good rap song for adults.
Ty Dolla $ign f. Jeremih – "Dawsin's Breek"
I'm not ashamed to say that I have a bias towards any hip-hop song whose title references Dawson's Creek, given that I'm from North Carolina and they filmed Dawson's Creek in North Carolina and I'm pretty sure one time somebody from Dawson's Creek randomly showed up at a bar that some of my friends were at when I was in college.
Marilyn Manson – "KILL4ME"
I have a theory that Marilyn Manson is secretly an extremely influential musician, and even though I don't really have too much evidence to back this up this is a hill I'm totally willing to die on. Anyways, when you strip away all the crazyass rumors and sensationalizing press coverage (e.g. this new interview in The Guardian where he pulls a fake gun on the reporter and later "flicks" him in the dick), Manson's music was really just super-catchy, delightfully dark synth-metal. And now that he's got a new album, Heaven Upside Down, on the pipeline, we've all got a chance to be super into him now that we're not kids who are either terrified of him or only listening to him to piss off our parents off.
Not Waving – "Me Me Me"
Speaking of spooky synth stuff, how about some off-kilter vaporwavey shit with a music video that's just a coupla dudes in skeleton costumes gallivanting around? I hope that's what you were in the mood for, because that's precisely what Not Waving is giving you.
Professor Rhythm – "Leave Me Alone"
Those of you still living in 2010 may recognize the bubbly keys from Afro-House producer Professor Rhythm's "Leave Me Alone" as the source material for Major Lazer's remix of Gyptian's "Hold You," and if not, well, uh, here, you can totally pretend you did. Regardless, Professor Rhythm's extremely '90s album Bafana Bafana is getting the reissue treatment from Awesome Tapes from Africa, because as a general rule of thumb, old music is better than new music.
Errorsmith – "I'm Interesting, Cheerful, and Sociable"
Being alive is a lot like this Errorsmith song: A lot of the individual tones used in the track are completely unbearable and will make your ears hurt, but as a whole it's kind of perfect and beautiful and optimistic and by the end everything is OK.
Big Baby Scumbag – "Tsunami"
I'm willing to give anybody with a rap name that doubles as a reference to Ol' Dirty Bastard's Big Baby Jesus nickname. At the moment that Big Baby Scumbag raps, "Had to go to the dentist, I'm addicted to flossin'," I knew that my faith was not misplaced.
Curtis Mayz – "NIke Cortez"
Curtis Mayz's "Nike Cortez" is half classic regional rap homage, half cloud-rap throwback, which is a phrase I never thought I'd type. Shit like this is just begging to be played so loud out of your car's speakers that it breaks them, which is fine because if you're a real music head you broke your car speakers long ago.
Ice Meez – "Talk 2 Them"
The "Motivational Gangster Rap Song" is secretly one of the most difficult subgenres of rap to pull off, mainly because it's super easy to think you're being deep when you're actually being really corny. Hailing from the northern tip of California's Bay Area, Ice Meez avoids these pitfalls adeptly, and after listening to "Talk 2 Them," you'll be ready to get out there and punch your dreams in the dick.
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